Univ.-Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wanek

Wolfgang Wanek’s group focuses on the linkage between plant and microbial functioning and terrestrial ecosystem processes. Wanek has long-standing expertise in applying stable isotopes to unravel the role of plants and soil microbes and their interaction in controlling ecosystem processes, from the local to the continental scale.

Research in Wolfgang’s group centres on the biogeochemistry of grasslands and forests in tropical and temperate biomes, with a focus on carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus (sulfur) cycling in the soil-plant-microbe system. Applying ecophysiological, metabolomics and isotope methods, as well as physicochemical characterization of the respective environments, his group seeks to understand biological and abiotic controls, how ecosystems respond to current and future global change, and how this feeds back on the functioning of ecosystems. His group has pioneered the development of an array of stable isotope-based methods to enable the quantification of gross element cycling processes that previously could not be measured.